What a difference a week makes.

In February, a group of UW music education students spent one week at Harrah Elementary School on the Yakama Indian Reservation, teaching young students about music from diverse cultures. The response to their visit was so positive that the Harrah School is now planning its own after-school music program.

The visit was part of an undergraduate course, “Ethnomusicology in the Schools,” taught by Professor Patricia Campbell. Students spent six weeks learning about the music of a particular culture and then creating lessons on that musical tradition to present at the Harrah School.

The idea for the school visit came from Harrah’s fine arts teacher, Charlcia Fendell, who had worked with UW student interns in the past. Hoping that students from the School of Music could give a much-needed boost to her curriculum, Fendell contacted the UW’s Office of Minority Affairs (OMA), which then contacted Campbell. OMA sponsored the week-long visit.

It was the first project of its sort in the School of Music. And it went so well, Campbell thinks it could happen again. “There was a very strong and positive reaction to what we were able to give,” says Campbell. “But the gain for us was just as great, both musically and culturally.”

When the UW class began, most of Campbell’s students were unfamiliar with the music they would soon be teaching. Students were asked to choose from five musical traditions—China, Vietnam, Ecuador, Zimbabwe, and Ghana—and learn as much as possible about that tradition, working in teams of two or three. They spent six weeks tracking down recordings, songs, dances, stories, and cultural information.

“They were doing a lot of listening and a lot of reading—quickly,” recalls Campbell. To complicate matters, adds Campbell, the UW students were faced with teaching a musical culture removed from their own to a group of children whose cultural traditions were also unfamiliar.

The students selected basic songs. Some they would perform, others the children would learn and perform. Most were folk songs with no written notation, so the students also had to transcribe the recorded music for teaching. “That moved them quite effectively to a real understanding of the structure of different kinds of music,” says Campbell.

Next came planning the lessons. Each group was assigned a different grade level and had to design lessons appropriate for that level. “They had to design listening experiences that would allow the children to hear what the music really sounded like,” says Campbell. “You can’t just throw a CD on. You must engage the students.”

No problem there. By the end of the week, first graders were performing a lion dance, second graders were chanting a lengthy Vietnamese song in rhythm, and fourth graders were playing basic patterns on the marimba for a school assembly. “It was exciting,” says Campbell. “There’s nothing like seeing children’s faces when they ‘get’ a musical phrase in a song that is all new to them.”

Fendell was equally thrilled to see the young students’ positive reactions to the music. One student’s progress in particular continues to make an impression on her. “One boy, who I would call an at-risk student because he really has a hard time coping with the school system, was so involved,” Fendell recalls. “He was participating in all the extra practices and since the UW students have left, he’s been coming to my room every available minute. He’s really picking up on music. That experience opened a door for him that I hadn’t been able to open previously.”

But it wasn’t an isolated response, which is why officials at the Harrah School are planning an after-school music program. Fendell said she expects as many as 100 students to participate in the program.

The experience was equally satisfying for the UW participants. David White, a senior music major, says he welcomed the opportunity to “get out there and teach” after discussing teaching theory in the classroom for so long. “It was a baptism by fire,” he says. “And the kids were real responsive. They were giving us hugs all week long.”

Campbell says that some of the undergraduates were so inspired that they were talking about returning to the school for future teaching and music-making ventures with the children. Others were reconsidering their career ambitions and thinking about musical education for elementary school children alongside or in lieu of high school bands, choirs, and orchestras.

"The experience was probably worth one whole quarter's worth in a classroom. It was just incredible how much we learned in such a short time."

“The growth of the students as communicators of music and teachers of music in one week’s time was notable,” says Campbell. “A number of them came in not knowing how the children would respond. But by the final day they had developed some manner and style of communication that had them looking more like teachers than students.”

Campbell’s students agree. “I can’t say enough good things about this kind of program,” says White. “The experience was probably worth one whole quarter’s worth in a classroom. It was just incredible how much we learned in such a short time.”

The youngsters from Harrah Elementary would probably say the same. “It really seemed to make them all aware of the fact that they—every single child—were capable of musical expression,” says Campbell. “They don’t always have that opportunity."

[Summer 2000 - Table of Contents]